


Chapter 2: Evil brewing in Kralia

by narodnik



Series: After the Fall of the Wood [2]
Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narodnik/pseuds/narodnik
Summary: An evil spirit is casting chimaeras in Kralia, and everyone thinks it's Sarkan. Except Agnieska. Kasia agrees to help her solve the mystery and identify the malevolent force behind these actions.





	

Agnieszka stared into the flames for several minutes, escaping from the dark revelations from her friends. A terrible pain was in her heart and she struggled to breathe. The days when Sarkan would go missing on end, admittedly had not struck her as strange, because he would often get so involved in an experiment that he would spend days on end lost in his work in his lab, while he repeated and refined his protocols. There was no spell to enable transport across the Kingdom. Sarkan was a defender against evil, as he had proven himself an avid warrior against the Wood in their past adventures. 

Agnieszka armored herself with these arguments against any doubt that she might have that the rumors were true, and her anxiety passed. Her friends had no firm proof for any of their accusations, merely rumors that had been spreading around the city. Small chimaeras had been cropping up in the muddy streets of Kralia, in the homes of townspeople and even within the walls of the castle: mostly spiders, snakes and poisonous frogs, who whispered Sarkan’s name while they sought out victims. Thus far, two small children and an elderly relative watching them had been killed, while many others had been injured fighting off these creatures. A dark presence had settled into the streets of Kralia, so that townspeople looked untrustingly at one another when they passed in the streets, rather than greeting one another in the regular friendly manner. Alosha and Kasia painted a portrait of Kralia that sounded terrifying, as though the Wood had returned to destroy the capitol city. 

Agnieszka, Alosha and Kasia stayed up into the night formulating a plan to identify once and for all the force behind the chimaera castings. Solya had initially encouraged them, but as their plans became detailed and concrete, he seemed to lose interest. He stretched in his seat. “I’m off to my chambers,” he said with a yawn. “This plan is completely useless, and more children will be dead while you continue this preposterous charade. I will go to the young King and persuade our naïve young leader to summon Sarkan to defend himself.” 

“That is way too hasty,” said Agnieszka, her face flushing hotly. She knew Sarkan would be absolutely incensed by any doubt of his fealty to Polnya. “We haven’t investigated the matter properly, and until we have overwhelming evidence, I will continue to believe that Sarkan is innocent. It was not so very long ago that he would have died defending the city from the Wood,” she reminded them. 

Alosha shook her head. She did not want to agree with Solya, who she instinctively distrusted, but time was not on their side. “Regardless, we need to bring him in for questioning,” she insisted. And with that, she too went to bed, leaving Agnieszka and Kasia to debate what to do. 

The first thing that Agnieszka and Kasia decided to do was to collect evidence about where and when the chimaeras had been appearing. For that, they needed to go to the Castle Library and approach Balias, the erudite Wizard who now managed the castle’s book collection, to let them examine the records of evil castings that had been reported in recent weeks. 

When they arrived at the library, it was empty. Balias was nowhere to be found. 

“I think I know where to find him,” laughed Kasia, and pointed upward. 

Fifty feet up, Balias was at the top of a ladder, gingerly replacing books from a book cart on the topmost shelf of the library. He hummed gently to himself, unaware of their presence below at the base of the ladder. 

“Hello, I am Agnieszka of Dvernik,” called up Agnieszka, a bit uncertainly. “Mr. Balias, might we trouble you for a little of your time? We are looking for information about the recent chimaera epidemic.” 

Balias looked down on them and pushed up his glasses, so that he could see Agnieszka better. He smiled, delighted. 

“Ah, yes. Of course, of course! Sad business, these chimeras. The little ones! They did not deserve that fate,” he shook his head, momentarily saddened, then looked with delight back at his book cart that was suspended from the ceiling using magic. “One minute please, I am rearranging some of these excellent books. The library has a splendid collection of volumes regarding early tenth-century levitation spells,” he revealed with pride. “What a collection indeed! If you want a castle in the clouds, or an army of men dancing in the air, why you should have a look at these!” As he shook a volume from his cart in the air, a little poof of dust shook free from its cover. “Alas, nobody seems to have time to read these dear ancient volumes,” Balias seemed sad as he contemplated them. 

Balias nimbly descended the ladder and shook Agnieszka’ hand. “Pleasure to meet you, my dear,” he said warmly, “Now if you two will follow me, I will show you to our registry.” 

Balias led them into an antechamber that Agnieszka had not noticed before on her previous visit to the Castle. Indeed, the last time she had been in this very library had been under such different circumstances: she had been practically accused of treason herself, had not yet proven herself worthy of the title Witch, and had accidentally found a book of chimeras that had nearly led to her downfall. She had been so inexperienced, she mused to herself. 

Within the antechamber where Balias pointed, was a tiny oak-panneled room brilliantly lit with candles. When Agnieszka looked closer at the light, she realized they were magic. “Couldn’t risk losing the jewel of the kingdom with real fire in here,” Balias scowled. 

The small room was bursting with magic. The main table was covered with open scrolls, on which enchanted quills were busily writing down notes about misplaced silver, livestock and other items, disagreements between merchants regarding debts, brawls at the local pub, and other crime-related news. 

Agnieszka and Kasia spent long hours over the next couple of days assembling information about the occurrences of these chimeras. The spiders, in various colors of gold, black and red, had appeared first, little over a month ago. They bit deeply and left deep green welts the size of a chicken in their victims. If untreated with healing potions to counter the poison in the wound, these bites would lead to total corruption in approximately three days. Usually the victims exploded in a green, noxious cloud, leaving corrupted air that could communicate the poison to others. 

The snakes followed the spiders in rapid succession. In brilliant patterns of green and black and silver, these snakes could often be found hiding in the back of a tradesman’s cart, finding their way to spread out around the city. Their bites were more severe; they anaesthetized their victims prior to injecting a concentrated venom that killed the victim within hours. This was what had happened to the two children and their grandmother: the milkman had brought around fresh milk for the children, and a snake, hiding in the back of his milk cart, had slithered unnoticed into the house. That night, as the children slept, the snake made them its victims. In the morning, the grandmother went to wake them, to find them unable to wake. 

The snake slithered out from between their bedsheets. The grandmother screamed and tried to kill the snake with a tray that she had been carrying, but the snake leapt from a tight coil so quickly around her neck that it suffocated her before she could cry out. The three victims were found thus, later in the day, when the parents returned home. The snake had gone out into the night. But before the grandmother died, she had written the word, “SARKAN” in blood on the wooden bedroom floor. 

The frogs were the most dangerous of all. Enchanted creatures, they could whisper spells of harm into the dreams of the townspeople, building suspicion in husband and wife of infidelity, or between armed guards of disloyalty, so that the people of Kralia would take action to hurt one another. 

All in all, the venomous spiders, snakes, and the actions of people under frog spells, had killed seven people, from what Kasia and Agnieszka could put together from the scrolls. Countless other victims could yet lie outside the city walls, as the snakes, frogs and spiders multiplied and spread. 

Agnieszka noticed one of the scrolls appeared to have paused writing mid-sentence, as though waiting to see what was going to happen. She moved closer to read the half-finished scroll. 

There is an enormous frog on the sill of a home,” the scroll wrote. “Nobody is safe in this house.” Agnieszka whispered a spell _“Revelabit”,_ and a map slowly materialized on the scroll, revealing the precise location of this frog, somewhere in a street that lay outside the Castle.” 

She showed Kasia the scroll, they took one quick look at each other, grabbed the scroll, and rushed for the Castle gate.


End file.
